Tiger quoll was a surprise

BEVAN Pugh has caught blue tongue lizards, bandicoots, hundreds of Indian myna birds and a few other bits and pieces, but never expected the tiger quoll he found when he went to empty the myna trap in his South Grafton back yard yesterday.

"It was quite a surprise," he said.

"When I spoke to National Parks they asked if there was any bush around me, but we have got the school (South High) on one side and the soccer fields across the road."

National Parks and Wildlife Service spokesman Lawrence Orel said tiger quolls were the largest carnivorous marsupials in NSW and were listed as a vulnerable species.

Their normal habitat is bushy areas where they feed on lizards, small birds, eggs, small animals and carrion.

He said numbers were declining because of loss of habitat.

They were once more common on the edge of town where they would attack chicken coops.

He said the last one found in the Grafton urban area was in Hawthorne St in the 1990s.